In a known liquid crystal display for a motor vehicle, the light striking the LCD cell from the internal lighting means is passed through only in the triggered areas of the cell. In the non-triggered areas, however, the light is predominantly absorbed, so that the information is presented in negative contrast. Bright characters appear against a dark background. Since the two glass plates of the LCD cell, located one immediately above the other, have a plurality of support points, and since furthermore the electrodes vapor-deposited onto the glass plates partly intersect one another, the appearance of the dark background of the display is not uniform. If a plurality of LCD cells, guided on struts, are disposed beside one another, then these struts between the individual displays must be appropriately colored to match the dark background, or like the support points and electrode crossings they must be masked by colored masks. Such colored masks, because of the various transmission properties of the materials in the areas to be masked, must be black, or in other words must have a high refractive index. On the other hand, however, since the LCD cells in the optically blocked, non-triggered areas have a not inconsiderable amount of afterglow, the background in these areas appears variously bright, depending on the brightness of the internal lighting means; and so depending on this variable brightness of the background, the masked areas of the LCD displays and the guide struts are variably prominent in appearance.
With the present invention, the object is to match the masked areas optically to the non-triggered areas of the LCD cell such that regardless of the internal lighting means they present a homogeneous appearance for the liquid crystal displays.